France: the White Lords of the Camargue & Arles

Join Thierry Bornier, a Provence native and one of the most awarded international landscape photographers, as we embark on a unique photography workshop to capture the famous white horses of the Camargue and develop or improve your photography skills. The locations you will discover on this tour are all far away from the popular tourist routes, well-preserved, authentic, and in some cases inaccessible to the general public. 

During this bespoke photography workshop in the Camargue, we will have seven shoots with the white horses, a birdwatching session at sunset, and one afternoon shoot in the heart of the French salt marshes as we discover the beautiful site of d’Aigues-Mortes. We will finish the workshop with a visit to the famous Arles International Photography Festival.

THE CAMARGUE

The Camargue region of southern France is well known for its natural beauty and especially its striking white horses! On the edges of Gard and Hérault, halfway between Nîmes and Montpellier, stretches a wilderness of marshes, sand, water, salt flats, and lagoons, as well as medieval villages, vineyards and olive trees. The Camargue’s horses and bulls coexist alongside a rich ornithological fauna. This terrain between land and sea, where freshwater mixes with saltwater, finds its unity in the Camargue Cross: an emblem of the region showing a fisherman's anchor joined with the trident of the “Guardians”, wranglers who have been stewards of the Camargue for generations, and in its centre a heart, symbol of love.  These are places that provoke strong feelings and are a real source of inspiration for photographers.

• PRIVATE SHOOTS OF THE WHITE HORSES

By the sea, at dawn, capture the white horses galloping in the waves and dunes, or in a wild marsh at sunset. Organised in small groups, intended for photographers of all levels, each participant will receive personalised support. Our philosophy is to make sure that you can take your time, which is an essential condition for photography. The chosen locations are far from all the tourist routes, enabling you to enjoy the moment in true tranquillity. We will have two types of photography sessions with the horses, with different philosophies guiding them:

The morning sessions will take place in the magical morning light and in a wide-open space in which to capture authentic moments. Like a lost world at the ends of the earth, this wilderness is populated only by birds and other wildlife, with a landscape including the sea, ponds, and dunes. In these sessions, we will photograph horses and their foals in action.

The evening sessions will be in a wild marsh in the heart of the Camargue, with the horses galloping in herds. The wild marsh allows for great opportunities to capture running horses in the water and in the beautiful evening light. During the sessions, we can also capture certain subjects, create landscape photos with the horses in the foreground, and try out different shooting techniques. We will be able to capture emblematic images of the Camargue and authentic moments in this unique setting. 

For both sessions, the idea remains to reconstruct the spectacle in which the wranglers attend to their daily working life on their land with their herds as closely as possible.

• BIRD WATCHING

For bird lovers, the Camargue Natural Park offers a stunning experience. Marsh birds, grassland birds, rare species, and water birds all converge on the Camargue’s waterways. As you walk along the pathways that loop around the park, you will encounter various marsh habitats and different kinds of wildlife and plant life. Signs are dotted along the path to educate visitors on everything they are seeing and experiencing. There is nowhere else in the Camargue where you will see pink flamingos as close as you will in this park.

One of our favourite things about this park? You can stay inside the Ornithological Park until sunset; even if the front gate closes hours earlier, a metal gate allows visitors to leave as they please. So, we will be able to spend our evenings watching flamingos fly back for their evening rest as the sun sets over the marshes.

• SALT LAKE AND NATURE TOUR

During our stay in the magical Salin d’Aigues-Mortes, you will be enchanted by our private tour (3.5 hours) of the surroundings by 4X4 to discover inaccessible places, fauna, and flora that you will not see anywhere else. Accompanied by a naturalist guide, you will discover this site’s great wealth of nature, with 278 plant varieties, 20 of which are protected species, and 200 bird species, including thousands of pink flamingos. After this adventure, you will also understand more about how the Camargue, the largest salt marsh in the Mediterranean, produces its famous Camargue salt. 

During these private shoots, we will also be able to take some spectacular images using drones.

• ARLES 

City of art and history, Arles is famous for its ancient and Roman remains. Indeed, the city boasts several monuments recognised on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

Arles also offers a wide choice of museums. Numerous places in the city, such as the garden of the hospital where Van Gogh stayed (now Espace Van Gogh, a cultural centre), the forum square, the quaysides of the Rhone river and Les Arènes, were immortalised in famous paintings by Van Gogh during his stay in Arles. A full Van Gogh tourist circuit is offered in the city, with panels representing the works of the artist at the various places where he was inspired.